Eustis employees to receive raises

EUSTIS – City Commissioners on Thursday voted 4-1 to increase pay for 69 city employees who for years have been getting paid less than new employees hired to the same or similar positions.

The decision was based on a recommendation from Human Resources Director Bill Howe after a equity study conducted by Cody & Associates, Inc.

In total, the raises will cost the city’s budget $218,782 annually. This year, however, the impact will be $91,000 based on the May 8 pay period when the increases will take effect.

Howe said the funds will be taken from various accounts in the budget, based on the department where each affected employee works.

“It’s gonna be hard and painful, but I do think we need to go and do it right. That is our way of saying thank you for hanging in here. Because I can tell, if you ask anyone that works for us, they work hard and they do it with a smile and we need to show them that we are thinking about trying to make it right,” said Commissioner Linda Durham Bob.

Commissioner Anthony Sabatini, who voted against it, said the impact the raises will have is too great for the budget to handle at once.

“How can $220,000 not affect the rest of the year’s budget? We have that much money in a closet somewhere or what?” he asked.

Sabatini also asked whether the increases could be introduced in phases and wondered about other city’s practices.

Linda Bunting, the principal consultant with Cody & Associates, said some cities have done it that way but warned against the idea.

“It’s best to do it all at once. If you phase it in over the years, the salaries will continue to go up and those that are below will stay below,” she said.

The study, completed on May 1, reviewed 158 city positions.

At the meeting, Bunting explained that the study did not compare salaries of any other cities. She said it was strictly internal.

“We just looked at your current salaries and saw a lot of inequities across the board,” Bunting said.

“The perfect world would be to say, OK, these are your ranges and everybody should be a certain percentage from the minimum based on time and grade but due to past practices, the pay and equities were all over the board,” Bunting said. “And to correct this, we did some statistical analysis and placed each position, based on time and grade, in their grade and figured out where those salaries were and then tried to base all the other salaries to a similar percentage. So therefore, it gets to be equity across the board.”

Sabatini then asked Bunting to assess Eustis’ standing, based on experiences with other cities.

“This is one of the worst as far as the equities that I’ve seen,” Bunting said.

After the meeting, Sabatini said he was discouraged by fellow commissioners’ quick acceptance of the raises, calling it “fiscally irresponsible.”

He said because city commissioners received the study on Monday for a Thursday meeting just three days later, he would have liked to have seen a workshop, more discussion and additional research into the study and subsequent increases.

He said he also thinks employees should receive increases based on merit over seniority.

“I say we go with statistics and reason and make it right,” Vice Mayor Marie Aliberti said.